We hope you’re all fine and dandy, and have had a nice start to this year, but just in case you needed something to make it even better, we’ve got a whole bunch of festival updates to brighten your day! Put on those mirrorshades, because things are about to get real.

First off, we’d like to say a massive thank you to everyone who took part in, and helped spread the word about, our recent charity art auction – thanks to all your efforts, we managed to raise close to £900 for The Barnardo’s Charity, which is a grand total for an amazing cause. We’d like to say a special thank you to all the artists who donated their work, and to Peter Doherty for all his help in getting the artwork together. You guys are all the best.

Now, we’ve just given the Thought Bubble website its annual makeover, and updated it with all the first wave information for this year’s festival, which is super exciting! We think this year’s festival is on track to be our best yet, and we’re hard at work making sure that everything comes together just right to make it so – we’ll have updates in the coming weeks on pre-ordering tickets for events and the registration process for exhibitors wishing to attend this year’s convention, so keep an eye out for those, but right now, we’ve got a summary of the information released on Thought Bubble 2014 so far below. Read on, Macduff!

Festival Dates 2014

This year’s Thought Bubble Festival, taking place in association with the 28th Leeds International Film Festival, will run from 9th – 16th November 2014 at venues across Leeds and beyond, with a centre-piece convention running on 15th & 16th November.

2014′s festival will include free art and writing based workshops for young people and adults, talks and masterclasses lead by industry professionals, and a programme of sequential art related film screenings.

Our special two day convention promises an incredible line up of leading artists and writers, and over 400 tables showcasing the best sequential art has to offer. The weekend will also feature portfolio viewings and competitions, as well as a huge cosplay parade.

Thought Bubble aims to be as open as possible to families, and individuals who may not be familiar to the medium, so come along and join in the fun in a friendly, welcoming atmosphere!

Featured Guests at Thought Bubble 2014

Thought Bubble prides itself on bringing a varied selection of guests through its doors each year, and 2014 is no exception! This year we are hoping to bring even more creators to Leeds, and as part of the first wave of festival guest announcements (with many more still to come in the run-up to November’s events), we are pleased to announce that we will be welcoming to our festival:

This year’s festival image has been created by the amazing Annie Wu, whose work on Hawkeye is a firm favourite here in the Thought Bubble offices, and we really love the 1920’s vibe she’s brought to the illustration – showing that even ghoulish spectres reading over your shoulder can’t diminish the joy to be found in a good comic!

(please click image to enlarge)

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That’s all the updates we have for now – we’ll be bringing you information thick and fast over the coming weeks, so be sure to keep an eye on the blog for fresh posts, or you can follow us on Twitter (@thoughtbubbleuk) or like our page on Facebook (search “thought bubble festival”).

Over the last couple of weeks, the extremely lovely Matt Sheret has been popping up videos from the ‘1000 Words’ strand of talks that he curated (along with web-presence-phobic Thought Bubbler Mikey B) at this year’s Thought Bubble convention. After the jump there’s a summary of the event, and links to all the talks collected in one handy block, but first – a few thank you’s…

If any of you went to last year’s We Are Words + Pictures strand of talks on independent comic creation at Thought Bubble’s convention, then that was organised by Matt too, and this was coming off the back of his working as Thought Bubble 2011’s Writer in Residence, so to say that we owe Matt a debt of gratitude is a bit of an understatement. We’d highly recommend checking out his Paper Science anthology, and, if we can convince him and Mikey to put on 2000 Words: A Space Odyssey next year, then we’re sure we’ll be thanking him again in December 2013. Cheers Matt, you’re a Good Egg.

Another big thank you has to go to Anne Hollowday, whose films on Thought Bubble and the British Comic Awards had already put us eternally into the red on the karmic balance sheet, but her filming of the 1000 Words talks has cemented the Wookiee life-debt we now owe. Thanks Anne, may your lenses ever be clear.

Massive thank you’s as well to all the speakers, including Kate Brown, Andy Belanger, Kristyna Baczynski and Laura Snapes for delivering some excellent talks on the day, all those whose presentations are presented below, and our lovely technical crew. And a big final thank you to all those who came along and made up the audience, we hope you’ll be back for more next year!

That’s enough preamble, on with the shows!

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1000 Words was a series of short talks about comics & culture by those who make them curated by Matt Sheret and Mike Bennet, full information on the talks can be found by clicking here.

1000 Words 2012 video presentations:

Emma Vieceli – 50 Shades of Nichea talk about the distinction between mainstream and niche, and about one very popular novel…

Anne Hollowday – Don’t Over Manage the Scenea few lessons from the world of documentary filmmaking and tells us how it links to comics writing with the Marvel Method…

Si Spurrier – Day of the Dinglesome delicious brainfarts on the topic of Collaborating With Creative Humans, as filtered through a true story from Spurrier’s brief and traumatic career in TV.

Antony Johnston – And His Massive Egosetting us straight about the terrific and powerful ego of artists and writers everywhere… or does he?

Kieron Gillen – Decimation [2012’s Keynote Talk]As a writer, Kieron’s been dancing with comics for a decade now. He’s trying to decide if he’s learned anything. If he has, he’ll tell you about it. If not, this video will be extremely quiet…

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be posting footage from many of the speakers at 1000 Words, the day of talks that ran at this year’s festival.

Today it’s the turn of Si Spurrier, bringing some delicious brainfarts on the topic of Collaborating With Creative Humans, as filtered through a true story from Spurrier’s brief and traumatic career in TV.